Longing for Yesterday
by broken time
Summary: No matter how hard she wishes, yesterday will never return. No matter how desperately she prays, tomorrow is always there. KakaSaku
1. Chapter One

**disclaimer:** do not own _Naruto_.  
**Pairing(s):** Hakate Kakashi and Haruno Sakura.  
**Comments:** revamped 10/13/2006.

They watched her, worry darkening their eyes, bringing a softly coaxing note to their words. They asked about dinner; she gave a noncommittal answer and the slightest of shrugs, too drained to answer to their concern.

"She'll be better in the morning," he stated firmly, more to convince himself.

"Perhaps I should talk to her alone," she fretted, staring blankly at the stew so meticulously prepared.

Sakura hardly cared of their regard. She didn't want dinner; she didn't want to hear their cautious taps against her door. She wanted solitude, to sit and nurse her wounds.

She wanted yesterday.

Yesterday, when _those words_ had been left unspoken.

Yesterday, when he had still been oblivious to _all of that_.

Yesterday, when she had been smart enough to simply smile and nod and train like the others. She had been nothing more than a student then. Nothing more than an everyday ordeal. Nothing like what she wanted to be.

What she could never be.

Tears fell unnoticed, eyes too wide and shadowed and pained by the brutal reality of life. By the disastrous death of her childish dreams.

No, they weren't childish.

Stupid, immature, fantastical - yes, all those. But they were not the dreams of a child. They were not the dreams she had held for a boy, innocent in her inability to see beyond a touch of a hand.

They were a woman's dreams, for a man. A woman understanding what she wanted.

But, he had said - so logical, so rational, so damn unmoved - that she could not understand what it meant. Did not understand, despite her intelligence, despite her textbook-perfect recital of facts and figures.

And the truth of it - the truth of _his_ knowledge and _his_ wisdom when she was so blinded by _feelings_ - it burned, burned so deeply it scarred.

What had she been thinking, to believe he would turn to her with a smile, with open arms and soft kisses? He had known her since she had barely begun to edge into the world of womanhood - she was more a daughter than a lover, in his eyes. She was still a child.

"Only to you," Sakura whispered, raising a hand to the cool glass of her window. It was beginning to snow, the white fluff gently floating to the ground. Children laughed and danced as their parents watched indulgently.

Naruto would be doing the same, right now - running with abandon, perhaps followed by young Konohamaru and his friends. Playing without a care in the world (practicing, in their words), without knowing how hers had cracked.

Sasuke - he would perhaps be eating dinner, without even realizing how the weather had changed. Maybe speaking with _him_, learning ways to build his strength. The only thoughts in his head were those of revenge; Sakura learned that long ago.

Learning _that_ had never hurt this much.

_Nothing_ had ever hurt this much.

She gazed blankly at the fog beginning to cover her view, withdrawing her fingers slowly, reluctantly. Giving up her brief link with the outside. Feeling herself close in.

_Kakashi... sensei._

Her hands clenched at the name. That beloved name that tore through her chest, bit into her heart with viciously sharp teeth.

_If only it were yesterday..._

If only she had not let her eyes reveal her most precious secret.

_It wouldn't have happened if I kept my concentration._

It wouldn't have happened if he hadn't caught her so easily in his arms.

_I shouldn't have said your name then._

She shouldn't have left out the honorific.

It had been top easy for him to realize then, when she had given that soft, breathily whispered "Kakashi", staring so avidly into his face.

He had put her down quickly, his eyes suddenly stern, his lips compressed. She could tell, behind the mask. She knew him better than he would ever come to see.

Then he had waited until the boys had gone home, waited to speak so calmly toward her. So unemotional, as though it hadn't affected him at all.

Was she supposed to walk over there tomorrow, with a smile on her face? Pretend nothing happened? Act as his student, and nothing more?

Impossible.

"It's too hard..." she said in light complaint, realizing now how hard it was to mourn. It took too much energy to form the depression and anger in her words, feelings that were so evident inside her.

But it didn't matter. Her stuffed animals didn't answer; they never did.

She groaned softly, letting her head fall forward onto her arms. It really was too hard. She couldn't... she wouldn't be able to handle it.

Would not be able to face _him_.

And what if he said her name? Would it always, always hold the memory of how he said it today? So flat, so bracing? The bringer of ill news?

Or would it sound as she had just imagined it - rather aloof, yet so slightly concerned? Would he notice the grief in her eyes? Would it show so easily in her face? Would he care?

Would she even be able to hide it, hide behind her pride?

"Sakura..."

She grimaced as his voice intruded again. Concerned, as though he cared. So different - Lord, how different! - from today.

More like it may have sounded yesterday.

"Sakura, look at me."

She covered her ears, bit back a sob of pain. Of bitter betrayal as her mind forced these tricks, gleefully danced over her battered heart.

"Go away," she whispered, hunching her shoulders defensively. "Please... please, just g-go... away."

"Sakura."

Stern now, commanding. And near.

Her head jerked; she stared in blank shock at the man crouched outside her window, which had somehow opened without her notice.

"Sensei..." She turned her face away, bitterly aware of how ravaged her face seemed. "What do you want?"

He was silent, but moved swiftly to enter her room, stepping in front of her. She turned again, refusing to lay eyes upon him, wishing desperately he was not here.

Secretly ecstatic that he was.

"Sakura," he said again, softly. Coaxing. She kept her gaze on the far wall, setting her mouth stubbornly. Wondering if she seemed _childish_ still. Caring and uncaring.

"Another lecture?" she inquired bitterly, wanting to strike out. Wanting to make him leave. Wanting to make a breach so wide and deep it would never heal.

He stayed silent, fanning her bitter pain into a fine fury. Finally jade eyes turned, glaring into his face. Filled with all the pride of a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman; filled with the indignation, the memories of his rejection. Filled with bitterness and anger and so very, very hurt by his sudden appearance.

He tucked his hands into his pockets, backing away casually, as disheveled and graceful as always. She hated how her heart still lurched at the site of him.

"What do you _want_," she breathed, wanting to hear him reject her feelings again. Wanting to be angry enough to strike. Wanting any reason, any reason at all, for her to shove him out of her mind.

Wishing he would hold out his arms.

"You dropped this," he finally announced, pulling a hand out of his pocket to hold out a rather tattered piece of cloth. Her cheeks flamed, paled.

"You held it all this time?" he asked softly.

She bit her lip. Another thing for him to tear from her; another sweet memory that would only be tainted by this moment.

"Yes." Her admittance was hoarse and nearly inaudible.

"You were thirteen," he mused softly, "young and easily impressionable."

"And bruised and battered after falling out of a tree." Sakura felt her cheeks warm again. Falling from a great height - like today. Like his rejection.

Had it really been four years?

"It was convenient, wasn't it?"

She blinked at his words, shaking her head before fully realizing the import of his question. "Never convenient."

His lips quirked slightly, a sign of great amusement and a joke only he could comprehend. "Of course."

Sakura tore the fabric out of his hands, tucking it away into her pocket. "What do you want, Kakashi-sensei?"

His hand hovered briefly between them, before he let it fall. "Why didn't I come to your front door?"

She blinked, confused. "I don't know."

Kakashi glanced away, perching on the edge of her bed carelessly. Calm and aloof and so damn in control. "Sasuke is gone."

Her shoulders stiffened. "Gone?"

"He and Naruto were assigned to a mission." He crossed his arms, unmoved by the news, never realizing that he was tearing her world apart.

"How... long?" she whispered, feeling her body tense. She needed them here. They were the only way she could keep her sanity. The only way she could hide from Kakashi's too-knowing gaze.

They were all she had of yesterday.

"...but it will take time. The journey itself will be long." He was speaking even as her mind wandered and dipped dizzily.

She shook her head sharply, ignored his slightly raised brows. Glanced away.

"Then, practice...?" she questioned, stomach knotting nervously. Her voice trembled. She swore softly in her mind.

"Ah, well. I have some things to do, so we'll start back up next week."

So casual.

"Was that all?" she questioned coolly, as though she wasn't in her own little crisis.

He hesitated.

"Then good night, sensei."


	2. Chapter Two

**disclaimer:** do not own _Naruto_.  
c**omments: **revamped 10/13/2006.

_3 months later... _

The silence was unbearable, causing the painfully thin girl to wilt beneath its pressure. Kakashi pretended not to notice, as he always did; it would break the brittle truce between them, the unspoken agreement never to speak about _that day_.

"Fifty," she muttered, wishing her arms didn't tremble so badly from the exertion. Fifty push-ups were her limit, soaking her face in sweat, bringing pain to her lungs as she breathed.

She had lost a lot since the boys left. Lost a lot of everything.

Sakura made no comment when Kakashi tossed a bottle of water in her direction, simply drank gratefully. She had no energy to wonder if he was starting to care, as she had the first few days. Always questioning every movement, every glance of his eyes - like a child, she admitted to herself.

"That's enough for today," he announced calmly, pushing away from his tree. "Go home and rest. You haven't been up to par lately."

_Lately._

She flinched, tightening her fingers around the bottle. Then lowered it, pasting a smile on her face, never knowing how brilliantly her pain shone in her eyes. Never knowing how much it killed the man who had considered her a sister for so long.

"A persistent cold," she lied, knowing he would never call her on it. "I don't eat much anymore."

And, really, she had been having days where she was not "up to par" even before... then. It wasn't as though this was unusual.

_But bad days lasting weeks is, perhaps, unusual._

He nodded shortly and turned to leave, both uncomfortable under the weight of lies and bitter truth. But her voice stopped him again, tentative and questioning and trembling with desperate need.

"When will they be back?"

"I don't know." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky. "It is a long mission."

"Why didn't you go with them?" she pushed insistently, for the first time since she had learned of the boys' departure.

"It was not my mission," he replied simply. "They are seventeen, not twelve, and Jounin as well."

Sakura glanced away, hating that point. Jounin. Chuunin. No longer the close-knit and comfortable 'Team 7' of her childhood.

That had disappeared long ago, despite their regularly morning meetings and training schedules. Schedules that Kakashi insisted the both of them keep to avoid speculation by those who knew them.

Not that those had been the precise words he said, but the meaning had been clear.

"All grown up, aren't they." The words were spoken bitterly as she pushed to her feet, weaving slightly as she stood. _So tired..._ "Amazing what a promotion can do."

Kakashi turned, eyes dark with concern. Concern for the words she spoke, the feeling behind them. "Sakura..."

She laughed, trying to make it sound careless. Trying to erase the emotion she had shown just moments before. They both knew it was a lie, but she had to start somewhere. Had to make him think she wasn't in such pain. "Don't worry, sensei." Even the title came out easily enough, without the sardonic undertone she had feared it would take. "I'm happy where I am."

_Lies._

"Look, I need to help Mom with dinner tonight." She smiled her normal smile, brilliant and warm and _normal_.

It was wrong.

Shadows burned in her eyes, beneath her cheekbones - jutting and prominent and sharp in her now-pale face. Not even hours under the sun could erase that pallor.

But Kakashi only nodded, knowing that she would not want him to ask. Knowing she would never want him to realize how affected she was. Wondering, as he was now prone to doing, if she would actually eat the dinner she made tonight.

Damn it.

- - -

"You don't need onions for this, Daddy!" She reached over to take the knife out of the large man's hands, exasperation scrawled along her face. He laughed sheepishly, looking down at the already peeled vegetable.

It was worth the effort - and the stinging eyes - to see a smile from his precious girl again.

"No onions, no beef... what are we making? Foreign stuff?" he teased, relieved to see Sakura roll her eyes. Beautiful ivy eyes that held too many shadows these days.

"Daddy, how does mom put up with you?" His daughter bagged the onion and tossed him a few green peppers. "Here, cut those into little circles. And when you're done, see that big red thing? That's a red bell pepper. Cut half of that into squares."

"Ah, definitely foreign food," he proclaimed, examining his new task with mock solemnity. "Never knew what these were."

"Daddy!"

"Right, right, cutting." He smiled as she scowled, and pointed to the now-boiling pot on the stove. "Tofu needs to go in now?"

"My, you do pay attention after all," she mocked, carefully sliding the slippery beige squares into the soup. "And once you chop those up, Father Handy, you can put them in too."

"Remind me, I might forget," he retorted, only to look guilty as his wife's voice came down the stairs.

"Are you two cooking or making a mess?"

"Cooking, Mom." Sakura smirked at her father. "I just needed to teach Daddy some common sense in the kitchen."

He glowered at his daughter beneath lowered brows. "Sakura," came the heavy warning.

She held the ladle out innocently. "Shall I cut? You can stir."

"Sakura," he began again, though quick to take the ladle, "You are pushing it."

She only grinned, bending to the peppers with great concentration. "I stir, I don't push. Pushing soup doesn't help it much." Turning wide, angelic eyes to her father, she added, "Besides, if you push it off the flame, it doesn't cook anymore."

He snorted, finally giving up the fight and outwardly sulking. But there was a hidden smile behind his outrageously childish pout.

"Honestly, you two..." Sakura's mother stood in the doorway, hands on her hips and a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You do realize that there _is_ a trashcan in the corner, don't you, dear?"

"I wasn't the one opening anything!" he protested immediately, as his daughter bit back a giggle.

"There wasn't much to open... but I see pieces of vegetables that are certainly not going into the stew littering my counter." Her brow arched coolly. "Are you really cooking and not making a mess?"

"No," he replied slyly, though he reached for the bits ("Not that one!" Sakura snapped) immediately. "We're cooking _and_ making a mess, love of my life."

"Oh!"

Sakura bent her head back in surprise, lifting a shaky hand to her nose. _Not again..._ "Daddy, could you get me a towel?"

He glanced at her in surprise. "What's wrong?"

"Just a nosebleed." She pressed the towel against her nose carefully. "Can you finish cutting, Daddy? I can't see like this."

"Of course." He frowned at her retreating back in worry. Now why was her nose bleeding? She had never been prone to them before. That, along with her pale face and occasional coughs, had fatherly concern rising rapidly. Was she ill? Certainly she had hardly been eating the past few months, but...

- - -

"I'm fine now, Mom." Sakura ducked from the maternal hand, sliding underneath the blanket quickly. "Don't worry so much."

"Are you sure you feel all right?" she asked, worry easily apparent as she looked over her daughter's face. "You were sweating all through dinner and hardly ate anything again..."

"I'm fine," Sakura interrupted quickly. "Look, I just need some sleep. I... I worked too hard during training, that's all."

She wondered if her lies were evident in her face, but her mother bit her lip and sighed. "You're sure?" she questioned again, pushing to her feet.

"I'm fine, Mom." She forced a smile. "You and Daddy should be going, though - you're late."

"Yes..." her mother agreed uncertainly, combing her fingers hesitantly through her daughter's hair. "We'll be back tomorrow evening, then."

"I'll have dinner waiting." Sakura leaned up to brush a kiss against the older woman's cheek. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. I'll go to the Medical Ward tomorrow."

That eased worry lines from her mother's face. "All right, Sakura. You rest tomorrow. No gallivanting off to train with Kakashi when you're sick, though." Her brows came together again briefly, then smoothed. "I'm putting my foot down on that one."

Sakura rolled her eyes, managing to hide the stab of pain at hearing his name. "Someone's late," she sing-songed pointedly, laughing until her door closed.

Then she stopped, gasped a little, and pushed off her blankets with a soft groan. _Any longer and I would have suffocated..._

She was so hot. And why did she hurt so?

_I pushed myself too hard during practice._

Yeah, right. She had never felt like this because of training. The excuse was good enough to fob off her parents, but...

Sakura huddled against the wall, waiting patiently as she heard her parents talking quietly downstairs. The door slammed.

She coughed violently, grimacing at the pain. _I'm sorry I lied, Mom._ But better to lie. They would worry too much over their only child.

Sakura rolled up the leg of her pajamas, studying the bruise there in the light from her window. It was too big, wasn't it?

The Medical Ward.

She whimpered softly, carefully crawling out of bed. She felt so stiff, so sore.

She hurt.

Stretches were better than sitting around in pain. Work it all out.

Her medical books gleamed from the shelves – she glanced toward them. Took a step toward her desk.

Stopped.

_It's nothing,_ she comforted herself, ignoring all the questions that wanted to run through her head. _Tsunade-sama will take a look and everything will be fine._

She had never been truly sick a day in her life.

_I can't wait for tomorrow._


	3. Chapter Three

**disclaimer:** do not own _Naruto_.  
c**omments:** revamped 10/14/2006.

"Tsunade-sama..." Sakura pled, clenching her hands at her side, "please, just keep this from my parents."

"I cannot do such a thing." The blonde turned away from the young girl, gazing out the window silently for a long moment. "Though you may be grown, you are still a child – and your parents should be informed." She turned back, lips curving into a severe frown, eyes serious and hard. "I know you have been neglecting medical studies for some time, but to come to me at this point..."

"It will worry them needlessly," she insisted, trying to sound as though she were in control.

She tried so hard, even standing there with her pale face and tightly pressed lips, as pain shivered along her back and kept her from moving – because movement would hurt, and she would not be able to suppress the cry of pain that would come.

It was not the way to convince the woman who had listened to her symptoms, who had checked her over thoroughly, only to come to a conclusion that Sakura hated to hear.

"Please," she added, though that single word hadn't made the difference before.

Tsunade sighed, raising a hand to her forehead, rubbing gently between her eyes. Her too-stern façade was easily discarded – it hardly made a difference to the girl she had mentored for the past two years. "Sakura, you realize you are asking me to keep a secret from your parents... a secret too large to simply say 'I'm sorry, I forgot' when they realize it?" She finally returned to her desk, fingers trailing lightly over the surface of it. The reality of it. "I am the leader of this village. I must always be forthright and honest; everyone should be able to hold the utmost faith in me, knowing that I will do what is best for Konoha, even if it means my life. Just one secret can demolish the faith your parents hold in the one they call Hokage."

"Fifth," Sakura pressed, switching from name to title and apparently ignoring the lecture, "you need not keep it a secret... quite. If you will just keep from sending a missive to them, it should be over by the time they return. You yourself said their mission was going to last longer than expected." In fact, they should have been back a week ago.

It had taken that week for the tests to finish, the plans to slide into place.

The older woman hesitated. She understood where the girl came from, and could see just why she wished her parents to be ignorant of the news – but even so, it was putting her in a compromising position. Not that she would ever deliver such disheartening news to those on mission, but afterwards...

"Sakura," she began again, with the faintest of frustrated sighs. "I have told you before it does not always work. What if your symptoms do not disappear? What will you tell your parents then? This is hardly a tried and true method... it is not necessarily the miracle cure."

"Then we tell them the truth," she replied, so promptly that Tsunade knew the girl had no doubts the operation would succeed.

It was a good attitude to have going into it – but what the girl didn't understand, and the adult did, was that sheer belief was not always enough.

"Then I will need to speak with Kakashi..."

"No!" Sakura blurted the objection, coloring faintly under the raised eyebrows of the woman she admired. "No, he...he really doesn't need to know. And it isn't as though he's family."

"He is your mentor as much or more than I am," Tsunade pointed out sharply, "and therefore as close as family."

Sakura glanced away, biting her lip. _How can I tell her..._

"But I see how you would not wish to worry him at this time." She sighed, leaning against the side of her desk and crossing her arms. "I cannot lie if he comes to me, Sakura."

"I know," she whispered miserably, wishing desperately the woman could.

Tsunade shook her head slightly, recognizing the signs easily enough. "I will keep your secret as well as I am able until your parents return home. However..." she raised her voice slightly, sharpening her tone to get the girl's attention. "We will begin treatment tomorrow."

Sakura bowed her head. "Thank you, Tsunade-sama."

- - -

He glanced up, somehow unsurprised to find him outside her home, just as dark began to fall. Her light was already on to battle the shadows; was she studying? Perhaps reading a text – he had seen her do it often enough, brows furrowed as she read through the long and winding passages of medical care and history.

_She is too pale,_ he thought, frowning faintly. He had silent worries he had never voiced, believing at first her apparent illness to be worry.

Worry over the boys, being gone so long. Worry over the teacher she held feelings for.

He bit back a curse, annoyed at the thought. It was complicated, had become too complicated to even speak with her.

He had called her a child, while thinking anything but. Sakura was grown, a woman. Occasionally falling to fits of emotion, yet rational and logical, perhaps the most mature out of the three he had raised from childhood. And that was the problem.

He was too old; she too young.

She was too sweet, too untainted by the life she lived. Even after the missions, even after her broken heart – even after bravely continuing to be as she always had, after realizing that she held no place in Sasuke's heart – she was still the very flower she was named after, beautiful and soft, graceful and serene.

In that pretty head of hers existed facts and numbers, figures and planning. Perhaps because of it, she had grown far more accustomed to living as an adult.

No matter how logical, no matter how logical, no matter how analytical she could be – she still held emotions inside her. Strong feelings, strong bonds. He saw it every day – how easily she dealt with others, considered them friends, trusted and cared for them. That he had never seen how it had changed – strengthened – toward him...

Perhaps because she had seemed so much older, he had begun – however briefly – to see her as a woman rather than a child.

Until he realized he did. Until she fell into his arms, looking at him with eyes he had not realized he wanted to see.

It was unethical, immoral, for him to think that way. He had drawn away immediately, knowing that showing his own weakness would only cement what she believed to be her ever-lasting feelings for him.

Him. The man her beloved Sasuke looked up to and admired, however reluctantly. The man who had been there during her bitter tears, her secret trips to the forest to do nothing more than run – run too fast, too hard, over terrain too rough for her carelessness. She had wanted to forget it all then, had kept whispering for the days of yesterday.

He had thought of her as a little sister then; when had it changed?

_I've been alone too long._

There was no other explanation for it.

And yet he stood there until the lights went off, and stood there a little longer after.

- - -

Sakura fought the urge to nibble at her nail, a habit she had outgrown years ago. Her eyes flickered around the room (gray, empty, cold), rested upon Shizune. The note was damp and crumpled in her fist. _Urgent,_ it said.

"...had decided to start tomorrow, the newest test results have us worried." That same worry was scrawled all over her face, something close to pity in her eyes.

_Don't look at me like that._

Something like panic stabbed at her chest.

"Your chakra control is astounding..."

"...but it's slipped." She finished the sentence flatly, forced herself to meet Shizune's eyes. _Breathe. Just breathe._ "I know. I can feel that."

"And you're still not eating," she confirmed with that toneless sort of voice that only confirmed her darker fears.

"We're starting tonight?"

"Tonight," she confirmed. "Tsunade-sama will be here shortly." She hesitated. "This... has never been tested on someone who is this advanced."

"I heard." Sakura gulped a breath of air. Blinked away tears. "I knew the initial diagnosis was leukemia. I was prepared for that one, you know." It was like she could do nothing but blabber like a fool.

Somehow life felt so much more real now. So much easier to lose. So much more fragile than she had ever remembered.

Nothing was under control anymore.

"I know." Shizune's fingers trembled. "I'm sorry, Sakura."

She smiled faintly. Trembled. Closed her eyes.

_Everything will be all right. _

"I know."


	4. Chapter Four

**disclaimer:** do not own _Naruto_.**  
comments:** previous chapters revamped slightly, fleshed out just a little. Thanks to Rini for a glance over the story for continuation (stupidity) and general glancing-ness. 

_It burns. Freezes. Doesn't belong._

"To the left, Hokage-sama."

"She's building natural blocks against it," she muttered. "We don't have much longer."

_It's wrong. It's changing something inside her._

"Pulse accelerating," Shizune announced sharply.

"Chakra increasing—"

_She wants it to go away._

"How fast, Neji?" Tsunade snapped, hands nearly trembling with effort.

"Fast."

- - -

She raised her face to the sky, closed her eyes to the soft sunlight. So peaceful, so warm, so still; it was almost as though she could ignore all the reality a step behind her.

Slender fingers curled into the soft fuzz of her jacket, pulled it a little closer. Autumn was here; she could feel it in the breeze, see it in the golden hue of the leaves.

Her haven was this balcony outside her window.

Often she leaned against the rails, watched those she knew stroll by below. Waved and laughed and chatted from her little sanctuary. Some noticed the pallor in her face, her lost weight; fewer still commented upon it.

It was rather like a haze of life, something slightly different from reality yet so infused with everything _real_.

One week of tests. One week of pain. One week of tries and retries and learning and attempts.

"Does it still hurt?"

"Of course it hurts," Sakura muttered, flexing her hands slightly. They were right; it was hardly a miracle cure. How many more treatments? How many more tries? Was it helping even the slightest?

She flinched at the pain, then glanced at Tsunade pointedly. "But that's not what you're here for, is it?"

"Your parents are returning from their mission." She spoke firmly, calmly. "You can't hide this, Sakura. It's different now, out of our hands."

_There is no guarantee._

She looked away.

"I know."

- - -

"I'm fine, Mom." She held onto that caring hand, smiled faintly. For a moment indulged in the warmth of arms around her. "Everything's going all right. I promise. Tsunade-sama herself is seeing to me..."

"But it isn't absolute, is it?" Her mother clung to her tightly, kissed the top of her head. Closed her eyes against the pain. "How did it become like this? How did this happen to you, sweetheart?"

"Apparently it can spread fast." She pulled away just a little, led her mother to a chair. Took the hand of her father, clenched in a fist and trembling.

Smiled again, with as much strength as she could muster. "I'm getting treated, you know. It's not going badly at all. I'm getting a little better each time."

"So it's... not cancer?" He spoke for the first time since the news, still pale and tense, worry and age lining his face. "It's not cancer, then?"

She hesitated. Shook her head slightly. "No, it's not cancer." Her grip tightened for just a moment, before she forced herself to relax.

_Calmly._

Be rational now. Logical. Textbook recital – that's easy, isn't it?

Like it doesn't belong to her.

Like it's not inside of her.

_Like it's not killing me._

Her thoughts slipped for a moment – _bruises, bleeding, pain, fever_ – but she shook her head sharply, shoved those memories away. "It's not cancer," she repeated, with a little less assurance to her voice. "But..."

Here she cracked. Wilted.

"Daddy, it's worse."

- - -

He was completely devoid of emotion, gazing at her so calmly – as though she had announced a new brand of tea being imported into the village.

Conversations like this were the worst. What to say, how much sympathy to show, how far to press – what was the best way?

There was no best way.

"Of course her training shall be postponed for an indeterminate amount of time." She stuck with facts, forced her voice to stay firm and calm. "Though the treatment is advancing well, it will not stand up to her chakra use."

Tsunade paused. "Naruto and Sasuke will be returning soon. I suggest you let them know before they see her."

He nodded slightly. "Of course."

- - -

The cup fell, shattered against the ground.

Kakashi stared blankly, for a moment unsure of what to do. Then – like autopilot – he knelt and began to gather the shards, ignoring the faint pain when a sharp edge sliced at his skin.

_It gives her symptoms rather like leukemia. Her bruises last longer, grow larger; the bleeding won't stop. But unlike cancer..._

Tsunade's words came to mind, burned him with knowledge.

_Using her chakra is far too dangerous._

He thought back to the training – the extra laps, though she was tired and obviously ailing in some way. The new seals, the constant repetition of simple drills. The way she would go home drained and tired.

_Of course, it is through no fault of your training. This is something no one can predict. It can attack any age, any sex. It can attack the healthy, the poor. It can attack those who have never channeled chakra in their life, though they have little to worry about._

Yet such explanations did nothing to relieve his guilt.

_Her chakra channels are nearly shattered. Instead of flowing smoothly through her body through specific points, some escapes into her body. Into her veins. It attacks her blood cells, her tissues, her muscles. Her own power is killing her._

He tossed the broken shards away with a sigh, pushed to his feet.

It wouldn't help for her to see him this way.

- - -

"Sen...sei?"

Sakura squinted through the darkness rather dubiously, brows furrowed at the shadow on her balcony – waving cheerfully as though it were the middle of the afternoon.

She stepped outside, shivering a little in the cool breeze. "What are you doing here, Kakashi-sensei?"

Her words held nothing but curiosity, as she looked at him – realizing suddenly how long it had been since she had actually _seen_ him. Wondering why he seemed so changed.

Before her heart would pound frantically and she would have to fight blushes from coloring her cheeks.

Now it was...

Like a blanket, something warm surrounding her while snow fell around her. A sense of contentment, underlying worry, confusion, pain.

It felt somehow more real than before.

Her heart thudded slowly in her chest; no faster, just harder. She wondered suddenly if it had just been a crush after all. She wondered, then, what this new feeling was.

"You have some color in your cheeks," he observed, and she knew he was smiling beneath that mask.

Sakura's lips curved in response, and she nodded slightly. "I'm better," she said simply.

They both knew it was more a lie than truth. She could see it in his eyes – his knowledge of her... illness, the chances of success. The rarity. How much was still unknown.

"I have some news I thought you would be happy to hear," he continued smoothly, as though there hadn't been that little moment of connection. His hand rested on the top of her head, ruffled her hair slightly.

_Like a child._

Familiar annoyance flashed, before fading into something else – something wistful and lonely when he took his hand away.

"Naruto and Sasuke are on their way back from their mission. It will still be a while before they actually reach Konoha, but they're coming home." He leaned down slightly, arched a brow. "Well? Are you happy?"

"Really?" she asked softly – almost choking on the word – feeling her heartbeat change just a little.

A bit faster. Harder. Slamming into her chest as noise scurried through her ears.

_Not alone._

She wouldn't be alone anymore.

"Are they... really coming home?" she questioned – like a child who was terrified of a lie.

"Yeah. They're coming home."

Sakura laughed, hiccupped, felt the tears build. Giggled almost hysterically for a moment as all her stoic defenses crumbled – _stand alone, deal with it, fix it, get better, don't worry about the pain, everything will be all right _– and she let reality in for just a moment – _wanting to depend, wanting to cry, wanting to be the little girl she hated to hear she was_.

And she knew, then, what this new feeling was.

He had come to her, with his normal smile, his normal eyes, his hand still warm as always. Not afraid to touch, not clinging with worry, not acting as though she would die the next second.

_Relief_.

She took a step, let her forehead fall against his chest. Felt him tense, though their bodies were still apart – still separated by cold night wind and all those little _reasons_ that had always been there before.

She let herself be selfish for that moment. Let her heart beat like normal in her ears. Let the happiness and sorrow and pain and guilt and grief rush through her, let the tears build without falling.

"Thank you," she whispered.

- - -

His student had grown to the point where he couldn't even begin to understand her anymore.

Kakashi sat on the rail of her balcony – something that had become a rather nightly ritual, as she curled up in an overstuffed chair, a blanket-covered bundle of ninja.

"My mother and I fought daily up until this past year," she recalled, resting her cheek in her hand and gazing out at nothing in particular. "My head was filled with Sasuke, and all I ever talked about was Sasuke. Sometimes I would complain about Naruto. I never helped around the house, never did much cooking."

She laughed suddenly.

"Whenever I brought all of you lunches, Naruto would be the only one to eat them like they were delicious. I wanted to get better then, I think. I asked my mom for help."

Sakura looked at him in amusement, lips twitching. "She was completely stunned. But she helped me out without any questions. Taught me more of how to cook. Told me..." A giggle here, and Kakashi arched a brow.

"Told you...?"

"She told me that if I wanted to specialize in medicine so badly, I _had_ to know how to cook – or else there was no way I would be able to handle mixing medicines. I think then it became more like practice than anything."

Well, that explained her sudden skill in cooking. He had honestly thought she was cheating and buying from stores.

"Your turn," she announced then, rolling over to stare at the sky.

"Well, let's see. When I was five years old, my father took me fishing."

"Fishing?"

"Yes. He told me of this fish no one could catch – one that had been in a pond for years and was too smart to be fooled by any regular fisherman. So I went with him."

Sakura frowned as he didn't continue. "And?" she questioned.

"Oh, we caught it."

"Liar!" she accused, laughing.

"It's true! It was five – no, _fifteen_ feet long... and it had three legs. And two tails."

"Like... I'm going to believe that one?" she scoffed, still laughing.

"But it's true," he protested vigorously. "We even have pictures!"

Sakura coughed – hard, racking coughs – before shaking her head and half-croaking, "Now, that I want to see."

"Yes, well, it burned along with my house a long time ago," he replied, deadpan.

She snorted in a distinctly unladylike manner, before coughing again. It was almost like a signal for such light-hearted conversation to end – a nasty little reminder of things like tomorrow and the day after that.

Things that she could hardly take for granted anymore.

"How are things going for you, little one?" he asked seriously now, without even glancing toward her.

She smiled faintly, closed her eyes. "Getting better," she replied – as always.

_Another lie, another night._


	5. Epilogue

**Disclaimer:** do not own _Naruto_.  
**Comments:** Lost all track of this story. I like how it the last chapter could serve as an ending, but figured it deserved an epilogue to make it better. This story makes me sad.

* * *

_They are saying things._

_Everybody says something when seasons become unpredictable, when snow piles on for a month longer than normal, or rains dry up through the year, but these comments are different. They are hushed, reverent, melodramatic. The snow comes too late to Konoha, they say quietly as children go out to play gleefully in the streets. It honors her, their child of spring. It weeps for her loss._

Snow fell gently, as though reluctant, and only when night fell. The sun's warmth no longer cared to grace the earth and chill came silently, breathing into the winds, touching every window and plant and surface of water, gleefully beginning the storm's dance. Clouds hid in the dark sky, heavy and encumbered and lazy, finally bringing winter's blessing to Konoha as they blocked starlight. There were many natural forces that dictated this late snow, but even so the whispers had continued through the village. Few had listened to reason, for all had been subject to the tragedy. That was what they called it, in hushed murmurs in the marketplace, the back alleys, during duty. None were safe from the fear that gripped them, unreasonable fear of a disease that so few people ever had. There was no plague to bring this fear to light. There was no pestilence to drag it to their minds, bring it to thought at every street corner.

But there was a girl - and her story was here, real and recent.

**Epilogue**

Lightly, lightly, the snow falls, and three men raise their faces to the sky. Kakashi is the first to speak, breaking the silence with a puff of white air. "She would want it this way."

"She likes spring better," Naruto argues heatlessly, bending to place flowers at the foot of the small stone. There is no body beneath the cold earth, and somehow it makes him feel empty. Emptier than the day he had returned, only to be rushed to the hospital and wait anxiously outside two doors, unable to make his presence known.

Sasuke says nothing, which surprises none of them, but neither does he raise his hand from its gentle caress of the marking of their friend. He is surprised at how much he cares, and feels as though he has failed her by never feeling the same way for her as she had for him - even though that part of their story has been over long ago. The stone, carved smooth and nearly unmarked, seems nothing like the girl he knew. He cannot quite see it as her resting place and feels oddly incomplete standing there - and knows he will feel even worse when he finally leaves.

"It gets better over time," Kakashi says gently, and their shoulders stiffen as they have each time he said the words. Forty-three times he has said them, and forty-five days has she been gone. He knows they hate him for his words, but says nothing, for they understand well now how much he needs to hear them too.

He always stands back, letting them stay nearest to her, as though apologizing for the time they never had. They never speak of it, though Naruto has become a too-determined man in this short time, careful with his promises and working too hard to keep them. Naruto says Sasuke has not changed, though Kakashi can see changes in him. They are little things, subtle things, and Naruto has not noticed. But Kakashi has, and though he says nothing, he watches. Friendship has become a vulnerable word to the Uchiha child, and he holds to his friendship with a desperate grip.

Peace, he knows, will someday come. Time will soothe the empty hole in their lives, and no longer will they walk here every day, tearing their wounds open and letting them bleed all across this little spot of land. No longer will they lovingly tend to the grass, pull away dead leaves, brush dirt from the stone that has become the only physical memory of her.

But right now he cannot quite believe it, and he misses their evening talks. He misses how she laughs at his outrageous stories, and how she brightened and strengthened when she learned her friends were coming home. He misses how she looks at him through her lashes, as though trying to memorize everything about him. He misses the pain that twists his heart at her soft smiles, her daydreaming face. He misses the pain of worrying about her.

Now there is nothing left but the pain of remembering different pains. Pains with hope to them.

And the storm finally closes in and lets snow cover the land, but the three of them still stand there, touching that little symbol on a cleared patch of grass, and they think, _Winter's here, Sakura. You haven't missed the first snow after all._


End file.
